Ken Dixon: Here's what farms grow, too: jobs

Of course we are what we eat: Twinkies, soda, chips, snacks. Wonder why we're afflicted with road rage, short attention spans and general disgust for our fellow humans?

It's a miracle that there aren't more bumper-car incidents escalating into OK Corral-style shootouts on the Moses Wheeler Bridge in that demilitarized zone between Stratford and Milford; on Route 7 in Ridgefield; or along the over-commercialized stretch of High Ridge Road in Stamford.

I mean, it is the harvest season.

Yes, there is a place for Twinkies and chips. It's not going to hurt a middle-school kid to gag down a brace of Twinkies from his brown bag once a week. And chips probably distract the attention of Sunday football fans from the conga line of on-field concussions.

Even junk food employs workers and truck drivers. At this point, Friday afternoon, I hope Hostess can pull out of their closure plans and retain their thousands of employees nationwide, including a couple hundred in Connecticut.

But since we are what we eat, I would like to show you part of a larger, healthier picture. It's Connecticut's $3.6 billion, 20,000 employee agriculture industry.

It starts with a plastic bottle of black currant juice and moves to a pretty awesome bowl of spicy pumpkin soup with a schmear of goat cheese on a slice of French bread crouton from the UConn bakery. Someone from the UConn Dining Services then comes by the table with a tureen of stewed pork, featuring local meat and veggies.

Out on the table are big dishes containing a winter vegetable quinoa medley from the farm of the Common Ground School in New Haven and a bright purple pile of roasted root vegetables from West Granby's Holcomb Farm, concocted by Chris Prosperi, chef at the Metro Bis restaurant in Simsbury.

Half gallons of fresh apple cider center the tables where about 140 people have spent $10 each to celebrate another harvest season. The crowd is heavier on farmer-formal: work boots and flannel shirts; and short on suits. Many still have the telltale tanned look of people who've been squinting into the sun all year.

But everyone is here in the Capitol for the annual meeting of the Working Lands Alliance, the nonprofit coalition of people, organizations and businesses forged in 1999 to protect Connecticut farmland.

Terry Jones of Shelton, the trouble-making chairman of the WLA, runs the meeting as servers drop off cups of Farmer's Cow ice cream at the tables. Next year will be the 50th anniversary of Public Act 490, the law that allows farms and open space to be assessed at the value of its use, rather than the "highest" use, such as fence-to-wall condos.

This, along with the $10 million a year the state has been investing in open space acquisition, will help retain Connecticut farmland.

If you think farmers' markets are ubiquitous, you're right, but purchases of "Connecticut Grown" products amount to only 1 percent of consumer dollars. The Governor's Council for Agricultural Development has set a target of 5 percent spending on state-grown by 2020.

Steve Reviczky, state commissioner of Agriculture, says the keys to growth are increasing market demands; close proximity to consumers; better consumer knowledge of their local sources of food; good land; and access to credit and financing. Obstacles, unfortunately in our small state, include the cost of land and labor; the cost of doing business; state and local regulations; and market competition.

Reviczky said the ag council's top ideas include trying to get more local food into public schools; creating a "more robust" marketing plan for Connecticut Grown; and easing some regulations.

Connecticut still needs an increase in local processing facilities, namely slaughterhouses to make it easier for meat growers to get to market. Increased weight limits would help truckers, Reviczky said, adding that a statewide marketing strategy is important, as is reducing energy costs.

Another goal is to support urban agriculture in places like Bridgeport, where gardens are being neglected, I notice, because of local political intramural fights and power grabs siphoning off the interest of volunteers.

Empty former factory spaces in Bridgeport could be easily converted to the kind of hydroponics operations that Allyn Brown of Maple Lane Farm in Preston is running. In addition to 100 outdoor acres of black currants, the largest field in North America, that he crushes and bottles, Brown annually grows 225,000 heads of leafy romaine lettuce indoors that Stop & Shop grabs as soon as they're ripe.

"There is a huge opportunity in greenhouse-grown produce," Brown said, noting the high costs of heat and electricity.

Jones half joked that he was envious of Brown's departure from the pick-your-own-strawberries business.

"I think our best attribute in Connecticut is our Yankee ingenuity," Jones told the crowd. "This is the tip of the iceberg of what Connecticut can do."

This gets us to the subject du jour of recent election years: jobs. Expanding agriculture in the state means more opportunities for people including the wonderfully poised graduates of the Ellis Clark Regional Agriscience and Technology Center located at Nonnewaug High School in Woodbury, with more than 300 students from 23 different towns, including Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethel, Bethlehem, Bridgewater, Brookfield, Danbury, Derby, Naugatuck, New Fairfield, New Milford, Newtown, Oxford, Prospect and Seymour.

At the recent Future Farmers of America Convention in Indianapolis, Nonnewaug students took home the top award in the nation.

Is it just it a coincidence that the school's big victory occurred after Gov. Dan Malloy committed more money for agriscience?